Sara Horowitz

Sara Horowitz
Founder and Executive Director
Working Today
The Freelancers Union

The American workforce is changing. Successive generations are ever more likely to have multiple careers during their lifetimes, to work from home, and to work in non-traditional jobs. Sara Horowitz is working with the freelance workers—everyone from cab drivers to IT specialists and graphic designers—who are on the leading edge of this cultural sea change. The new workforce is fluid and independent, and they must provide themselves with benefits. Sara is helping them do that through organization, using the Internet to empower her constituents en masse. She is leading the effort to unionize the new workforce so they can receive insurance and retirement benefits, as well as providing the networking connections freelancers need to replace the traditional career ladder. Her organization, Freelancers Union, serves as a model for how everything from traditional labor unions to insurance companies and large employers need to adapt to the workforce changes that are taking place. While freelancers are at the forefront of those changes, more traditional employees are also beginning to see the effects, with even some of the largest corporations failing to provide benefits to their employees. As the workforce changes, employees will need sustainable mechanisms in place in order to provide security and opportunity for themselves. As Sara says, she is leading the movement for a new New Deal.

Sara is a third-generation labor advocate. She holds degrees from Cornell’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, SUNY Buffalo Law School, and Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. She is the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation fellowship and was named a Public Interest Pioneer by the Stern Family Fund. She has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, and on NPR’s All Things Considered.

For more on Sara Horowitz:
$70 Million Effort Seeks New Safety Net for Workers
By Steven Greenhouse, New York Times
July 31, 2008

Curing Young of Invincibility Complex
By Carolyn Colwell, Crain's New York Business
June 15, 2008

Together, We Can Work Solo
By Alex Goldmark, Marketplace
May 19, 2008

Working From Home? Get Out Once in a While...
By Mike Muller, Gothamist Gazette's "The Wonkette"
April 23, 2008

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